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Table of Contents

IntroductionModelsBifurcationsChaosPatterns in ChaosWhat We LearnedBibliographyAppendix

Description

It is impossible to predict the exact behavior of all biological systems and how these same systems are exemplified by patterns of complexity and regularity. Decades of research in ecology have documented how these sorts of patterns are the consequences of deceptively simple rules that determine the nature of the patterns created. Chaos in Ecology will explain how simple beginnings result in complicated results.

Chaos in Ecology is the inaugural volume of Theoretical Ecology Series. The authors of this volume have employed data from a proven model system in population dynamics. As a result, this book will be of interest to anyone interested in the ecology of populations.

Key Features

It is impossible to predict the exact behavior of almost all biological systems and yet these same systems are exemplified by patterns of complexity and regularity. Decades of research in ecology have documented that these sorts of patterns are the consequence of deceptively simple rules that determine the nature of the patterns created. In essence, simple beginnings result in complicated results

This realization is captured in the mathematical notion of "chaos" and is rendered intuitive by the oft-repeated metaphor: "A butterfly beats its wings in China and causing a thunderstorm in the Midwest." Thus, seemingly trivial initial conditions (e.g. a butterfly in China) cascade through a series of intermediate events to create a significant large-scale event (e.g. a thunderstorm)

Chaos in Ecology is the inaugural volume of Theoretical Ecology Series. The authors of this volume have employed data from a proven model system in population dynamics. As a result, this book will be of interest to anyone interested in the ecology of populations

Readership

Ecologists, biologists, paleontologists and graduate students interested in ecology

Details

Reviews

"The authors have made very circumspect model verifications...The greatest merit of the book is that it confirms experimentally the existence of numerous nonlinear phenomena in populations and presents a new characteristic of populations, that is, the lattice effect. The book is written in an excellent style with high mathematical precision. This work is warmly recommended to all theoretical and field ecologists, and all scientists interested in nonlinear dynamics." --COMMUNITY ECOLOGY, 2005

"...rich in statistical concepts and methods. Anyone interested in the dynamics of populations will benefit from reading this book." --ECOLOGY, 2003

"In a very real sense, Cushing et al. have done for ecology what Newton did for physics. They have demonstrated that the observed, very complex behavior of biological populations can, at least in principle, be derived and predicted from a knowledge of the operant biological mechanisms expressed in simple mathematical models. ...Chaos in Ecology is a road-map for making ecology into a genuinely predictive science." --Aaron A. King, University of Tennessee, 2002

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